1 / 13

Six Rules for Dialogue

Six Rules for Dialogue. “ What are the rules, Ms. Furness? ” asked a curious 7 th grade class. “ Pay close attention and you will learn these easy to remember rules, ” Ms. Furness replied. Rule #1: Quotation marks are twins!.

geneva
Download Presentation

Six Rules for Dialogue

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Six Rules for Dialogue “What are the rules, Ms. Furness?” asked a curious 7th grade class. “Pay close attention and you will learn these easy to remember rules,” Ms. Furness replied.

  2. Rule #1: Quotation marks are twins! • Did you know that? Quotation marks are twins because they come in a PAIR—they always need to have the other one along with them, somewhere in the sentence. • Do not open a quotation and fail to close it at the end of the quoted material. • Good example: “I ate an egg McMuffin this morning!” Reed announced. • Bad example: “I ate an egg McMuffin this morning! Reed announced.

  3. Rule #1 continued… • Fix the errors in the sentences below. Remember: quote marks are like inseparable twins: • 1. “What do I write here? Genna wondered. • 2. Fardeen thought, Who cares if there’s a spider in my hair?” • 3. Narissa yelled, Alright! Who took my pencil?

  4. Rule #2: Capitals aren’t just for maps. • Capitalize the first letter of a direct quote: • Example: Elizabeth, who was working in her yard that morning, said, "The alien spaceship appeared right before my own two eyes.“ • Make the changes needed for the next sentence: Elijah looked around the room, before turning to Nelson, and whispered, do you have any gum?

  5. Rule #3: Use a variety of speaker tags • Speaker tags: they tell us who is speaking and how they are speaking. They are underlined below: • Example: “I couldn’t even sleep last night!”Nadeen shrieked. “Why not?”Rachel yawned. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about how excited I was to go to Language Arts!”Nadeen exclaimed.

  6. Rule #3 continued… • It is BORING to read the same speaker tag over and over and over and over again. • Example: “What are you doing?” Emily said. “Nothing,” Eunice said. Then Michelle walked over and said, “What’s going on?” “Nothing,” Emily and Eunice said at the same time. And then Ms. Furness quit typing because she fell asleep on top of her keyboard because she was SO bored!

  7. Rule #3 continued… • Brainstorm as many alternatives to the word “said” that you can think of. • Compare with the people in your row. Add any new examples to your list.

  8. Rule #4: Quotes MUST be linked to speaker tags! • Quotations, or dialogue, MUST be linked or hooked to the speaker tag with some type of punctuation (i.e. comma, question mark or exclamation point). • Good example: “Good afternoon, class!” exclaimed Abbi. • Bad example: “What’s up” Abbi shouted.

  9. Rule #4 continued… • Read each sentence below. • Add an appropriate punctuation mark to LINK each speaker tag to its word. • 1. “Who is going to get the journals ” Skylar asked. • 2. “I can’t WAIT until Breaking Dawn comes out on DVD ” Dominic shrieked. • 3. “I’m going to get a drink ” Kia announced.

  10. Rule #5: Speakers are SELFISH! • Much like you probably were as a child, speakers in dialogue are selfish and need their space, or paragraphs. • Example: Torin skipped through the daisy fields singing, “Lalalalalala! Flowers are so pretty!” Isiah strolled past and muttered, “What a weirdo!”

  11. Rule #6: Dialogue needs action! • You need to add action to make your writing sound interesting. Boring example: “Hi,” Bebi murmured. “Well, hello!” Fifi replied. “What’s new?” Bebi asked. “I’m going to be an author!” Fifi blurted. (Who cares about any of them because we don’t know anything about them? Add action to make it more interesting!)

  12. Rule #6 continued… Better example: “Hi,” Jade murmured as she walked to the bus stop through the wet snow. “Well, hello!” Morgan replied happily looking up from the book she was reading. Jade noticed Morgan seemed to be in a very good mood and asked, “What’s new?” Holding up her book, Morgan blurted excitedly, “I’m going to be an author!”

  13. Rule #6 continued… • Add action to the following conversation to make it more interesting: “Hi,” Megan said. “Look at that over there,” Addison pointed. “Wow, that’s really interesting,” Megan replied. “I can’t believe that you’re not more excited about this,” Addison replied. “AUGGH!” Kamryn screamed, running by with her hands in the air!

More Related